All Forum Posts by: David Roberts

I own 1 rental but used a realtor to find my tenants, and now that I've decided to start an actual business, I want to try to do most things myself, and recently just had an offer accepted on a 2nd rental (and now I'm a ball of nerves lol).  A couple of questions about the rental application.  Trying to read all I can and nail down my process now.

1. If a husband/wife or whatever combination of adults want to rent from me, do BOTH need to be screened separately and both need to submit rental applications?

2. If I take an application fee of 30.00, do I take 30 for the husband and 30 for the wife?  I plan to use mysmartmove, so I'm assuming it will charge me 2 times for 2 people.

3.  If a potential tenant doesn't fill it out in front of you, and takes it home, how do you receive them?  Do you have them mail it?  Scan and email it?  

4. I would assume it's better (for me) to take an application fee at time of receiving the application, and pay for it on mysmartmove, so that way if I disqualify someone before even getting there, I get to keep it.  ALSO, I don't have to wait for a response on the tenant's side to set up an account and agree to allow me to screen? 

6. What if a tenant claims that this is their first time renting, and they have no prior landlords?  Do you eliminate them or what else do you use or ask to try to consider them?

7. And not that much related to the rental app, but:  If I have a tenant that notifies me they are going to be moving out of my house in 30 days, at what point might i be able to put my rental back on the market?  Can I show it to new potential tenants in the last 30 days of the old tenants' stay?

Thank you!

title solutions... Located in Plymouth michigan

Used them a couple times with no issue  and I know the family.  I'm good friends with the owner's brother.  Good people. 

If I buy a home for 100k, and the house appraises for 110k, can I borrow the appraised value so that I can bring LESS down payment cash to closing and use more of the bank's cash in the deal?

Or will the bank only loan the lesser of the appraisal and the purchase price?

thanks all.  I searched for my question beurre posting but wanted to be more specific on if I could have them direct deposit to me with no fees. 

I think I will require certified check for first month so that at least that one is legit. 

My friend sold a motorcycle and the person gave him a counterfeit certified check so you still have to be careful.  Make sure there aren't any Ronald McDonald clown heads on it lol. 

What is a class A rental,  b,  c,  etc? 

I was just going through one of the How To Guides and it came to the topic of accepting rent.

It suggests not to take cash or personal checks, especially at first and only accept certified funds.  I have 1 rental with the same tenants for the past 4 years who have paid me by personal check every month, so there's no way I'm going to change that now as they've proven themselves (and I got lucky).

But moving forward, I would like to get away from that for future rentals.  Money Orders I believe are only good for up to 500, and the rent I will be charging on my next rental will be around 1k a month.  Certified checks these days are getting ridiculous in price (over 10 bucks at my bank).

So, I guess now that most everyone is going to electronic payment, can I set up electronic payment free of cost through Bank of America checking?  Can I give out a checking account number (and routing number I think) to the tenants?  I want to find a method that is free for everybody, and I'm also local.

I really don't do many electronic transactions personally besides paying credit cards and such.  I have never had someone pay me money to my account.  So I don't know if it's that simple, giving out my account information and having the tenant pay me as if they are doing bill pay from their account at their bank.   Is there an associated fee or is?

ill post more later as I'm on phone but,  80 is slightly over market but the house is move in ready and has some upgrades others didn't have that were comparable.  I stand to get 370ish cash flow after  expenses per month at 80, around 300 at 85.  Didn't want to overpay that much and am willing to let go 

I'm not willing to Pay 85. 

Anyway,  I declined to get mixed up in any nuttiness like I was suggesting lol

So I offered 80k on a house yesterday.  The sellers came back with a counter offer of 85k (they asking 89.9k).  I thought this might happen, because they bought the home in 2009 for 95k.

They claim that 85k is their breakeven point on the loan, otherwise they would have to 'short sell'.  That's what the selling agent told my agent. 

So let's assume for a second that they really do need 85k to break even.  Is there a counter offer that I could do to get around this, to help them?  I want to stay at 80k (as I think it's more than a reasonable offer), but if they are willing to sell it to me for 80k and need out of the loan, can I do a side offer (or through the purchase agreement) where I give them 5k as a loan to pay me back with an interest rate over 1-2 years?  I would be willing to give them cash.

Can that be done? 

Is there a more efficient way to go about this, that protects me?  I think in Michigan the max amount a person can lend another person is 7% simple interest.  Maybe others in Michigan know about this.

Thanks.  I would like to get back with them today with a counter offer that has something to do with this.

Ok so, the cost for applying for the HELOC will be an appraisal cost? Is there any other cost?

I go through my credit union which has a separate dept for running all mortgages, and I believe the loan officer before told me I have to go to the branch and a loan agent/officer at the credit union will handle home equity loans and HELOCs.  Does that sound right?

I am just now starting to discover the use of debt to leverage up but in a good way.

Until recently I was one of those debt haters.  I was raised to save, to avoid credit cards like the plague, to pay down my home and be done with banks.  While I still hate debt, I'm starting to realize more and more using the bank's money and conserving my cash is the smart thing, especially if I pay the bank 6% or less, and get 20+% returns.

But I won't lie, the whole idea of leveraging my primary home scares me.

How do they determine the amount of equity in my primary home if they don't do closing like on a refi?

Also, if I did a HELOC with my girlfriend how do they view credit scores? I have superb credit (810) and she is probably just under 700.